Will You Be Criminally Charged For DUI Or Other Crime Months Later?

Knowing when or if you will be charged with a crime can be more confusing than most people would assume. Unless you were arrested and received notification of the court date for your Arraignment, you are stuck in legal limbo. It’s a pretty stressful place to be. We created a monitoring service for this reason.

How did I get a warrant for my arrest?

The issue with legal limbo is that it can lead to many more legal problems. The most serious issue is getting a Warrant for failing to appear for your Arraignment…the Arraignment you may not have known about!

If they “dropped” the charges, how can I get charged later?

Getting criminally charged months or even a year later happens all the time. The most common scenario is when a person was arrested and released but it can happen from simple “interactions” with police. Perhaps you answered questions to be helpful during an investigation and somehow you are now the suspect or defendant. This is a serious situation and you need to get the advice of an experienced criminal defense attorney right away.

Check out our blog on being arrested and released.

Charging delays happens most often with marijuana DUI stops

Attorney Ryan Witt explains the importance of knowing your THC levels if you use marijuana on a regular basis. We are a per se state so impairment is not needed to prove DUI.

We monitor a large number of marijuana DUI cases because our clients are usually stopped and released without a court date. Again, this is due to the toxicology lab back up. In our experience, most marijuana DUI cases are being charged six to twelve months after the initial stop. Having our low cost monitoring service keep an eye on the situation will prevent a failure to appear at your Arraignment months down the road.

Do Not Guess or Hope About the Outcome

If you had an interaction with law enforcement or were arrested and released, do not guess whether you are facing a future criminal charge! 

If you guess wrong and don’t receive your Summons, your case will start on a very bad note. Options for dismissal or positive resolutions will likely no longer be available to you. Let our lawyers “watch” the case and give you updates. We started the monitoring service so we can help people just like you. Put the stress of “legal limbo” on our shoulders.

What does “monitoring” a case mean?

Once we gather the facts regarding your stop, we will assess the likelihood you will be criminally charged at some point. About 5% of the time, the facts indicate a criminal charge is coming in the future but it never happens. The Statute of Limitations on the underlying charge passes and the client is never charged. We always hope for this but the odds are not great.

Unfortunately, when it comes to future criminal charging, we are correct about 95% of the time. The criminal charge and the Summons is on the horizon. We monitor the situation weekly to determine where in the “queue” the reports or charging documents are floating.

Once we know the case will be charged, our monitored client authorizes us to get to work on the defense of the case. If the client has us onboard right away, we try to strike early with the prosecutor to negotiate before other collateral negative consequences can happen.

The best case scenario

Every once in awhile, we will learn that our client will be getting charged but an Arraignment date has not yet been set. During this “sweet spot,” we push hard to negotiate a resolution before our client ever sees a courtroom.

There are certain proactive steps we will ask our clients to do so that the case is ripe for a quick resolution. With this unusual timing in charging and our client’s sincere effort, we can often get the best possible outcome. If we win at this stage, we use other strategies to destroy DOL’s chances of administratively suspending you, which is always possible even if you “win” the criminal case.

To learn more about our low cost case monitoring service, give us a call 7 days a week. We understand that serious legal matters cannot always be addressed between 9 to 5 so don’t worry about calling after hours. We take cases in Kitsap and Thurston Counties as well as cities in those areas such as Bremerton, Poulsbo, Port Orchard, Silverdale, Lacey, Tumwater, and Olympia.

Call to see if we can help you. 360-792-1000

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